Thank you everyone for the wonderful reviews!
This will probably be the second-to-last chapter. I know it's short, but each chapter covers one year in pretty minimal detail and I'm only going up to second year.
A notice: This is where things start to get very AUish. Up to the end, HP stays fairly on track with cannon, though I've had to change some things per changes already made in previous chapters [for example, Dumbledore is fine because Sam and Dean already took care of Marvolo's ring]. Concerning Supernatural, however, I changed a lot of things, mainly to avoid making Dean take the mark. If anyone has questions concerning the timelines or what's going on in the Supernatural side of things, then feel free to send me a message or leave a question in your review!
Disclaimer: I do not own anything at all concerning Harry Potter or Supernatural, who belong entirely to their respective owners.
Chapter Four- The Confirmation of Insanity [2014]
There was absolutely no denying it now.
Since Harry's third year, there had been a mass-murderer loose from Azkaban, a student had died in a Tournament and a Dark Lord come back to life, said Dark Lord's return had been covered up even when half of his most loyal followers had broken out of Azkaban, they'd invaded the Ministry and had a huge battle, yet there they were.
The Winchesters were still here.
If that didn't cement the fact that they were insane, Harry didn't know what would.
Still, something seemed off about them. Harry had come in late, because of his meeting with Malfoy on the train, but he'd looked up and seen it immediately. Neither of them had touched their food, instead talking to each other hurriedly and in whispers. Sam looked worn and pale, as if he'd recently recovered from a bad illness. Dean kept glancing at the doors, as if waiting for someone or wishing to leave.
In Harry's first class with them, only Dean was there. When someone asked where Sam was, he said that Sam was taking a couple days off and wouldn't be in class for a while. It was the first time anyone had ever gotten a solid answer about something unrelated to the class, and it kept all the students quiet in shock as Dean carried on with the lecture.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione immediately used their first study period to gather in the common room and try to figure out what had happened to Sam Winchester.
"Could it be whatever happened to his brother in fourth year?" Ron asked over his Potions assignment. "I mean, he was gone for an entire year."
"I doubt it," said Hermione, "Unless he got some watered down form of it, he wouldn't be here either."
"He looked like he'd been ill to me," put in Harry. "Like he was still getting over something."
"Maybe they've been hunting Voldemort all summer and got hit with some sort of curse," Ron improvised wildly.
"Don't be silly, Ron, they haven't been hunting Voldemort. Don't you remember? They came over to the Burrow once on Order business, and the Order hasn't been doing anything like that."
"They joined the Order?" Harry nearly scattered ink all over his essay. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I must have forgotten." Hermione scrawled a new sentence onto her parchment. "Honestly, it was only the one time, and we barely saw them. Everyone was closed off in the kitchen, like at where we stayed last summer." The Fidelius charm around Grimmauld Place prevented them from saying it aloud.
"Why would they join now, an not last year? Wouldn't Dumbledore have asked them?"
"Maybe he didn't trust them."
"Oh, come off it," scoffed Ron. "The only Defense teachers to last longer than a year, and he didn't immediately ask? Now that they've joined, we're probably five times as likely to win."
"You didn't buy into those rumors that they learned everything about creatures firsthand, did you?" Hermione asked dryly. "For Merlin's sake, Ron, we've been learning about demons and why you shouldn't summon one. There's no way they learned that firsthand. No sane wizard would go about summoning demons."
"Well where else would you learn about crossroads deals?" asked Harry. "It's not really something you can look up in the library."
"Harry! Don't tell me you believe it too!"
Whatever the truth was, the argument was never resolved, since no one brought it up again.
This year marked the first time since last year that neither of the Winchesters showed up to class one day. Instead of the brothers, a lined man with messy dark hair and day's worth of stubble taught for a week before they returned. He occasionally seemed unsure of what he was doing, and no one was sure whether Professor Castiel actually had a last name or not. No one ever saw him in the Great Hall during meals, and most began to think he was some sort of magical creature that didn't need food.
This was shot down faster than a speed spell, because if he was a creature there was no way the Winchesters would let him teach their class, and he could just get meals straight from the house-elves.
[What people didn't talk about was what the Winchesters were doing, though in that moment they had no way of knowing that the brothers were holed up in the bunker, doing their best to get any information they could out of Crowley. After Metatron's spell, they'd managed to activate whatever mechanism had stared during the Fall and discovered the approximate locations of where each angel had fallen. Kevin was still working on translating the tablet, and with Castiel's help the bunker was already filling up with rescued angels. Without the majority of their power, they were rather harmless and some were quite grateful for the rescue. Others had to be convinced.]
Though everyone agreed it was weird that he never came down, plenty of teachers didn't. Professor Trelawney, as far as most people knew, never left her tower, and it seemed like almost the same situation with Professor Castiel.
Even more odd, he didn't leave when the Winchesters returned. He stayed and took Sam's place, helping Dean and acting as an aide while Sam recovered. Even when the taller Winchester returned to teaching, he still stayed on.
No one knew why, but most assumed he just didn't have anywhere else to go.
[His brothers and sisters back in America probably wouldn't react well to his presence.]
How right they were, for perhaps the first time.
The Winchesters disappeared periodically, each time replaced by Castiel, and no one was every provided with an explanation of where they went or what they were doing.
One day, Castiel left with them.
[Kevin and the other angels had managed to rig up a system that would broadcast messages to every angel on Earth. Since they had all finally been convinced to work together (after a lot of shouting from the most senior one there) they were reasonably certain that they could get their siblings to team up with them and help try and reverse Metatron's spell.]
The class walked in, expecting to see Castiel at the head of the class since by now they had to have vanished again, only to see Professor Snape in the front of the classroom.
Every one of the Gryffindors paused in horror at the thought of having him for two classes that year.
When Sam and Den returned, they complained so much about the ridiculous homework he'd assigned and how unfair it was that they'd picked Snape of all people that no one noticed until later that Castiel hadn't come back with them.
[In an unknown location where an underground dungeon can be found, a bleeding and heavily injured Castiel tricks Theo into releasing him and steals his Grace, leaving his brother vulnerable on the floor and human.]
The next time they vanished, there was even less warning than usual, but this time their substitute was a portly man named Horace Slughorn. Apparently, he'd been asked to take the job solely to cover the Winchester's absences. He was constantly talking about his old students and how famous they were now and how he was really more suited to Potions than to Defense.
The students regarded him with a strange mix of emotion between dislike and 'yeah that's my teacher he's kind of weird let's go the other way'.
It was nearing Christmas break, and the Winchesters had spent about half of their time actually teaching. It was becoming so commonplace that no one actually questioned where they went anymore.
That is, until the next time they returned, when they resumed teaching with Dean's left arm in a sling and Sam with a fading black eye, and both of them moved gingerly around the classroom. At this point a betting pool had been started on where they went during their 'vacations', ranging from 'fighting Death Eaters' to 'breaking and entering to steal old artifacts' to one submission that read only 'who the fuck knows'.
Admittedly, that last one did end up winning when the betting pool was called off for lasting too long.
[Two weeks ago, the Winchesters had been looking for a group of angels who wanted sanctuary when said angels ambushed them, angel blades blazing. Castiel and two of his brothers, who had accompanied them, were the only reason that they had made it out of there without more significant injuries. Bobby called them idjits and then let Dean hang out on the sofa doing minimal research while his arm healed. Castiel told them that a new faction had formed, one led by Bartholomew, which mainly consisted of angels who refused to join Castiel out of pride]
When Katie Bell ended up in the hospital wing because of a cursed necklace, the Winchesters arrived minutes after they'd been contacted, Castiel in tow. The man ran a hand over her, while the Winchesters talked in low voices. He joined the conversation and muttered something, at which point all three left after telling Madam Pomfrey "She'll be fine now, just keep her comfortable while she's out."
Snape, who had examined the necklace, cast several spells on a sleeping Katie and told Dumbledore that the effects of the curse had somehow been removed from her system, and he could detect barely any damage.
Hermione finally convinced Harry to ask the Winchesters about the handwriting in his book, which he immediately regretted. Not only did they keep his potions book for about a month, but also when they returned it any spells had been mysteriously smudged and all that he could still read was the tips on making potions.
When he told Hermione this, she looked unsure whether to be vindicated in the sense that she'd [apparently] been right about the spells, or upset that they hadn't done anything about Harry following the written advice. Harry still thought Hermione was just jealous that he was doing better than her for once.
When Harry started taking lessons from Dumbledore, he was expecting spells and survival strategies. Not analyzing Voldemort and learning about his childhood.
Harry wondered why Dumbledore never tried to tell anyone that Voldemort's father had been a Muggle. He had all the proof right there, and it could have destroyed a huge chunk of Voldemort's support system.
As Harry got older, the less he blindly trusted Dumbledore.
He started taking self-defense lessons with Sam again, because they'd be a hell of a lot more useful now than they were during the Tournament. He almost wasn't surprised when Sam started teaching him how to win a sword fight.
The short silver sword he'd been given, once he was deemed well trained enough not to accidentally kill someone with it, made itself a permanent home in a secret pocket of his trunk.
When Ron was nearly fatally poisoned, Harry was beginning to suspect that something fishy was going on. Two objects, the necklace and the wine, were meant to be presents for someone, and both had nearly killed someone. He remembered a bit of the conversation from when he'd eavesdropped on Malfoy on the train, and how the blond Slytherin had yanked his left arm away from Madam Malkin when she went to roll up the sleeve.
Oh.
Things were starting to fall into place.
After confiding his suspicions to the Winchesters [because Hermione and Ron had already made it clear that they didn't believe him] the brothers told him they'd check it out. They gave him a phone, which Harry was surprised worked, but Sam just laughed when he asked about it and told him whatever had been put up to prevent electricity working, it was probably meant for things like radios and other electrical appliances, and as long as a device had been EMP hardened it would work fine.
Harry wasn't sure what EMP hardening was, but he took the phone. It took him a week to figure out how the sleek black rectangle worked, and he discovered that the only contacts listed were 'Sam', 'Dean', and "The Bunker'.
He didn't ask what the Bunker was, because by now he knew that he'd never get a straight answer.
He later thought of Dobby and called the small elf, asking him to keep an eye on Malfoy and tell him if he did anything suspicious.
Dobby set himself to the task with enthusiasm. Maybe a little too much enthusiasm, but Harry was just glad to have someone on his side watching Malfoy.
It seemed like the year sped by, and then screeched to a halt on an otherwise unremarkable day.
Dobby had popped into Gryffindor tower and practically squeaked that Malfoy had gone into the Room of Requirement and Death Eaters were coming out.
It took approximately three seconds for Harry to take charge.
The younger years were kept all in one dorm, the highest one, with a couple fifth years to guard them. Two other fifth years, who had volunteered, we sent out to warn the Winchesters and McGonagall. A couple sixth years who had friends in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw were told to go and warn them, with seventh years accompanying them. One seventh year, who volunteered when Harry asked if anyone knew how to seal a door shut, was told the location of the door to the Slytherin common room and told to go seal it shut.
They had no way of knowing how many of the Slytherins would ally with the invaders.
Harry waited with his friends - all five who had accompanied him to the Ministry the year before - and divided the Felix Felicis he'd won amongst them, handing it out and quickly darting into the hallway so that no one realized that he hadn't taken any.
By the time everyone possible and willing was out in the halls, Hogwarts was flooded with Death Eaters.
Harry had been worried they'd be outnumbered, but the two opposing forces were fairly evenly matched. Considering that the Death Eaters hadn't expected anyone to be given a warning, they'd really sent more than they needed.
It was like last year in the Department of Mysteries. Spells flying, people dodging and ducking. The main difference was that on several occasions, Harry stood up to fire a spell in retaliation only to hear a series of bangs that deafened everyone in the room and left several Death Eaters crumpled to the ground, bleeding from fatal wounds and the Winchesters leaping over bodies to get to the center of the fight.
Sam and Dean Winchester fighting was honestly one of the scariest things Harry had ever seen.
He and Luna once ended up next to each other, her wielding a blade identical to the one he'd been given. She stopped in the middle of the fight to whisper, "You do have to use it, you know. The Death Eaters are too blinded by Nargles to be able to do any better."
Harry swallowed thickly and took his out of his pocket. Only minutes later, he tried not to look back at the man who he'd left bleeding out on the ground.
The center of the fight had moved to the seventh floor, near the stairs up to the Astronomy tower. Whatever the Death Eaters were doing up there, they didn't want to be bothered, because they had erected some sort of shield that prevented anyone without a Dark mark from going up the stairs.
It was nearly half an hour later before Dumbledore arrived and took down the ward with ease. The Winchesters sprinted up the stairs before he could do anything, and the echoing bangs of the Muggle guns they carried told everyone exactly what had happened.
Supposedly, after all was said and done, Dumbledore told them that their services would not be required next year. The official reasons were that the students might be afraid of them, but Dean and Sam both agreed that the old man was so against killing anyone, no matter what they'd done, he fired them purely on that principle.
Harry was starting to agree with them.
The problem was, the Order of the Phoenix only reacted. There were no preemptive strikes against the Death Eaters, no system in place to try and stop their attacks in the first place. Harry spent his summer reading war strategy and then used Sirius's extensive knowledge of Floo addresses to call Hermione, Ron and the other Weasleys, and every single other overage member of Dumbledore's Army.
It was really time that they took the fight to Voldemort.
So here we are! Like I said, pretty AU. Dumbledore's Army really should have played a more integral part! Or at least I thought so. I was thinking that anyone over seventeen would be allowed to fight, and fifteen and up could help out in other ways. Harry's not going to let anyone under fifteen join, because come on. They're kids. Anyway, reviews are my life and will encourage me to start chapter five faster! Consider this: Three reviews made me write this entire chapter in one day. THINK WHAT MORE WILL DO.
The button is right down there *points* please let me know what you think!